Weeknotes S03E04
A reflective week with some understated highlights and some pragmatism.
Some things I’ve been doing and thinking about this week.
What is a delivery triangle and where does data fit in?
I’ve heard the phrase “Delivery Triangle” used a lot recently so have been trying to find out more. Aaron explained that core of the idea comes from how to represent the key skills in the team. I also saw this
which was accompanied by this sentence “At GDS, there are three distinct roles to push development forward, Product Manager, Delivery Manager and Technical Lead. The best operating model is for the three roles to exist in positive tension.” I’m still thinking this through.
Last week I mentioned how our team has a technical side and a product side. This week, work has started to come together very well with the technical community. You could consider this as the WHAT above. Our partnership work with Microsoft on the data platform starts next week. The work Daniel has been leading on data standards is also really taking shape. We’re also continuing to work with the product community on the different aspects of WHY. I’ve had a few conversations this week with delivery managers about aspects of HOW.
Value and constraints
A lot of the earlier part of the week focused on value and constraints. In work and out. Inside of work, value and constraints conversations link with the WHY above.
Outside of work we’re changing the layout of the main living space in our home. We’re knocking down walls and blocking up doors. We’ve ordered new flooring, a sofa and are considering getting a new TV. We decided on the things that mattered to us. We wrote them down. We did our research and narrowed the options based on our context. Then we made choices. It didn’t take long.
Our values and constraints were the same for all aspects — budget, design, practicality. Doing it this way ensured we could do everything we wanted with a co-ordinated design and give the parameters for the activity.
This is similar to how Scott described good product management for 2020 this week — taking the insights of several perspectives and finding value in the sweet spot where they align.
Intertia
Last week some of my thoughts were about being unconventional. This brings inertia. This tweet — one of a few I had pointed out to me this week — sums up why.
I’ve felt a lot of inertia recently. I’ve spent a bit of time thinking about what's driven that. I’ve questioned a lot of things. I’ve decided to back off a little as think I have maybe been pushing for too much too soon and perhaps being too disruptive.
Interviews and mentoring
I’ve spent a lot of the latter part of the week — with more to come next week — interviewing for Data Scientist positions. Overall, to my considerable surprise, I’ve quite enjoyed it so far. Remote interviewing has been ok.
I was asked by someone last week if I would consider mentoring them. We chatted this week. I explained that I wasn’t sure if I was suited to mentoring due to the approach I take to things. But apparently, that was exactly why she asked. She outlined that she thought of me as someone who
- is authentic
- is straightforward in conversations
- expands peoples horizons
- builds teams on trust and knowing people as individuals
I was quite taken aback as I haven’t had many dealings with them. We had a great energising conversation which suggests we are a good fit. I’m very keen to help with her long-term plan.
Side conversations
I’m really starting to miss the ability to just pop and see someone for a chat. Those people in the office that you might not work directly with but know, trust, get on with and can scheme and let off steam with.
This week I caught up with Adam and it was great. Adam and I used to work together. Three years back we decided to create a more open way of delivering content to encourage people to think more about communicating with data. Someone from another department contacted us this week as they really liked it and wanted to use it with their senior managers.
In the absence of face to face, Slack remains a really good medium for informal communication and my gif game has been strong this week.
